 | CHAPTER THREE
MAIN STREET—PLYMOUTH, MASS.
In the Manner of Sinclair Lewis A Parody Outline of History |  |
VI
At 3:10 Priscilla drank the Mencken medicine; at 3:12 she was lying in agony on the floor; at 3:20 she opened her eyes; at 3:21 she walked out of her front door; and at 3:22 she discovered what was wrong with Plymouth and the pilgrims.
Main Street. Straight and narrow. A Puritan thoroughfare in a Puritan town.
The church. A centre of Puritan worship. The shrine of a narrow theology which persistently repressed beauty and joy and life.
The Miles Standish house. The house of a Puritan. A squat, unlovely symbol of repression. Beauty crushed by Morality.
Plymouth Rock. Hard, unyielding—like the Puritan moral code. A huge tombstone on the grave of Pan.
She fled home. She flung herself, sobbing, on the bed. She cried, "They're all Puritans that's what they are, Puritans!''
After a while she slept, her cheeks flushed, her heart beating unnaturally.
| CHAPTER THREE
MAIN STREET—PLYMOUTH, MASS.
In the Manner of Sinclair Lewis A Parody Outline of History | |